"No," she said, and promptly yawned. "Well, maybe." She tilted her head and smiled up at him. "It's been a nice evening. I hate to see it end."

"Me, too." He kissed her then, for a long time, even though they were right out in front of G.o.d and everybody and dollars would get you donuts the neighbors across the street were stargazing from their porch swing. "Do you maybe need help getting this dress off?"

She shook her head, her soft hair tickling his chin. "I need to think about what I'm doing." She raised her face so that their gazes met in the dim glow of the streetlights. "I don't want to be like Crockett and your sister, barely speaking to each other because at some point in time, something happened between them that still stings. It's hard on them and it's hard on Gert. I intend to stay around, and I don't want a broken relationship littering either of our paths."

Anger stirred under Boone's ribs. Holy horses.h.i.t, couldn't they just have a good time? They were both adults, not the post-adolescents Kelly and Crockett had been when Kelly had decided she was in love with the guy who'd treated her like a sister most of her life.

"I'm not ready to make any promises," he said, his fingers going still under the straps of her dress.

She stiffened-he could have sworn her skin cooled under his touch-but held his gaze. "I'm not asking for any, nor do I have any to offer in return, but s.e.x isn't casual for me. I'm not going to pretend it is."

There was nothing casual about it for him, either. At least, not anymore. In truth, holding Lucy in his arms was about as un-casual as it got. It made him think of things like permanence and moving, lock, stock, barrel and baggage, to Taft. He'd even held Micah and Landy's baby girl and exchanged solemn stares with her and thought maybe it was time to put that particular grief away and try again.

Live again.

Love again.

It scared the h.e.l.l out of him.

"How about we just go slow?" He didn't want to argue-the relationship was too new to withstand the coldness of anger. He drew his hands away, then put them back on her shoulders, meeting her eyes again. "Slow, but not backwards. What do you think?"

"I'd like that." She smiled, though the expression was more wistful than happy. "And I won't expect any promises."

Three minutes ago, that's what he'd wanted, what he'd said.

A lot could change in three minutes.

Chapter Eleven.

The smoke rose thick and acrid up the staircase as Lucy stumbled down it. She moved unerringly to where he stood at the huge commercial stove, pushing onions and peppers around in a saute pan. He worked happily, singing something Irish in his rusty baritone. She grasped his arm, shaking it for emphasis.

"Dad? Come on. Let's get outside where it's safe. No, let's go out the back door. The fire's in the front."

In her dreams, she was always in time, and when she woke, she grieved again because she wasn't.

Johnny Dolan was dead.

She'd slept well lately. Even the night of the trash fire at Down at Jenny's, she'd gone to bed thinking of Boone's kisses instead of encroaching flames. Tonight, however, the dream had come again, and it had been real enough that she still smelled a faint whiff of smoke.

She knew she wouldn't go back to sleep-the sun was already up-so she dressed in shorts and a tank top before draping Kinsey over her arm and going down the back stairs. The house was cool, but the humidity of early August made it feel uncomfortably close, as though a headache were hovering around the ceiling searching for a place to settle in.

She filled her cup even before the coffeemaker stopped grumbling about being awakened and went toward the sunroom, draping a kitchen towel over her shoulder. "Let's go outside," she murmured to Kinsey. "And no chasing birds, okay? Those feeders don't hang in the trees to make things easy for you."

The cat was sidetracked by the food and water bowls in the sunroom, so Lucy pushed her feet into flip-flops and stepped into the back yard alone.

She wiped a patio tabletop and a matching chair dry and sat. She loved early mornings, although this one would have been better if it had started an hour or so later, without the dream as an unhappy impetus. As much as she enjoyed the hubbub of the tearoom, she cherished the quiet feeling of no one being awake but her and the birds. And one frisky tuxedo kitten.

The flower beds were still alive with color, but the gra.s.s was already the paler, dryer green of late summer. She'd given up on any semblance of neatness in the vegetable garden-it had been taken over by tomato plants and greedy melon and cuc.u.mber vines, all of which were producing far more fruit than they could use. It even smelled different than it had just a few short weeks ago.

Not just different.

It smelled like smoke.

As if on cue, the sounds of sirens sliced through the air. Lucy's grip on her cup was so tight her fingers ached with it. She looked around, unable to see the gray haze that she knew accompanied the smell.

Boone's voice preceded him into the yard. "What's going on?" He carried coffee in one hand and Kinsey in the other.

"Fire." Her voice sounded as hollow as she felt. "Can't you smell it?"

"Where is it?" He handed her the cat and dried a chair with the damp dish towel lying on the table. He didn't sit, however, but prowled the perimeter of the yard.

"How should I know?" Lucy asked sharply, her gaze following his movements.

"Get over yourself," Boone suggested, scowling over his shoulder. "I wondered if I needed to try to spray down the house."

"Oh." She petted Kinsey much harder than the cat liked. She meowed a protest and jumped out of Lucy's lap, running to sit on the back stoop and groom herself.

The sirens came closer. Closer. And stopped. Lucy's stomach clenched. What if someone was hurt? Unable to sit still, she got up and walked around to the front of the house.

Two fire trucks, a sheriff's car and another emergency vehicle filled the street at the end of the block. Feeling like an ambulance-chaser, Lucy started toward the corner. People were already outside, some of them still in nightclothes, standing in the street and on the sidewalks. The sheriff waved them back.

By the time she reached the small throng, Boone was beside her, his hand clasping hers.

"What's burning?" he asked the group of neighbors.

"Stan Morgan's garage. It was full of c.r.a.p. Kept trying to warn him," said Mr. Ballard, whose house was beside the Morgans'. "We'll be lucky if it doesn't take his house and ours with it, if the wind picks up."

As if on cue, the never-present August breeze paid a visit and the flames veered toward the Morgan house. A shout from the firefighters preceded a preventative stream of water. Lucy flinched when a window shattered.

"Where is Mr. Morgan?" she asked. Dread moved through her in shuddering waves. When Boone released her hand and put his arm around her, she leaned into him.

"He's over there." Mr. Ballard pointed. "He lives alone. His wife died a few years ago, and all the stuff in the garage was hers that he never could make himself get rid of."

Boone's arm tightened around her back, but the sensation disappeared so quickly she wondered if she'd imagined it.

"Come on." His voice was quiet. "Let's go home. There's nothing we can do here."

She went with him. "I feel as though I'm being followed," she said, glancing over her shoulder as they walked toward Tea on Twilight.

"Followed?"

"By tongues of flame or something. How long before everyone starts wondering about me like Kelly does? And who can blame them? As far as I know, fire isn't a commonplace occurrence in Taft. Or it wasn't before I came here."

"I don't think two unrelated fires create a pattern." Boone's voice was calm.

Gert was preparing breakfast when they got back to the house. "I heard sirens," she said, forking bacon onto a platter.

Boone explained while Lucy set places at the island.

"Stan Morgan was always a packrat. That didn't start when Winnie died. I thought it was healthy that you didn't keep Maggie's things," Gert said, "but I know it bothered you some giving them away."

"Keeping them was harder. Her sister still wears some of her clothes, and it startles me when I see them. After I gave her piano to the school, I used to go there and listen to people play it. Until it occurred to me exactly how sick Maggie would have thought that was." Boone laughed, and his aunt gave him a smile that was both surprised and pleased.

Sims came into the kitchen, his walker thumping in front of him. "Today's the day," he said, sitting down with a grunt of accomplishment.

"What day's that?" Although Lucy knew very well-he'd talked of little else lately. Landy and Nancy Walker were coming to serve lunch in the tearoom so Lucy could make the drive to Cincinnati. "Want coffee?"

When he nodded, Lucy poured his and carried the carafe around to refill everyone else's cups while she was at it. Once a waitress, always a waitress.

"My partner here and I are parting company." He rapped his knuckles against the cast on his leg. "I'll be able to get out of your way and back into my own house." He frowned at Boone. "Reckon you'll be able to stop working at the station too, if this leg works. That boy Jack's pretty good help, though, for sure. Thought I might keep him on. He couldn't work all that many hours after school starts, but maybe we could stay open later, the way we did when you and Crockett were in school." His scowl beetled his heavy gray eyebrows. "Not that either of you did diddly, but just sayin'."

"Good idea, though I can still fill in if you need me to. I was planning on staying around till Labor Day anyway. That's another two weeks."

Lucy set down her fork and stared sightlessly at her plate. She'd known-of course she had-that Boone would leave. He had a home in Chicago, a life that had little to do with Taft, Indiana. His aunt and sister usually visited him, not the other way around.

"He and Crockett nearly always come during the Christmas holidays, though not necessarily on the day itself," Gert had told her the week before, "then for a few days at different times in the summer months. This year has been a social anomaly for both of them." Tears shimmered in her eyes for just a moment, and her gnarled fingers with their long, blood-red nails stopped snapping beans. "I miss the old days sometimes, when all the kids were here and the house was never quiet or neat."

Remembering the conversation, Lucy lifted her fork again and sighed. She was going to miss something too. Someone. This wasn't something she'd counted on when she moved to Taft. She was used to being on her own. She was good at it-she didn't need another family, much less a man. Specifically a man like Boone. Whatever that meant.

Across the table, Boone spoke. "I'll come back, though." He tried to capture her gaze, but she avoided his eyes.

"Micah and I are having a good time with the new strip," he said. "I'll come down to brainstorm with him."

What about me? Will you brainstorm with me too? Will we ever make love again or was that just a one-time thing? Was it casual for you after all?

"There's a soup supper in October," he said. "Want to go to it with me?"

She smiled at him, though her heart felt empty. "I'll be working at it. You want to help?"

"I can do that. I've cleaned a lot of tables at church suppers."

Gert snorted. "You were supposed to clean tables. You boys spent more time outside talking about football and embarra.s.sing girls as they came in."

"We thought that was part of the job."

A shout of, "Good morning!" preceded Kelly into the kitchen. "It smells awful out there. Where's the fire this time?" Her gaze barely touched on Lucy as she poured a cup of coffee, cadged a piece of toast from her brother's plate and sat at the island.

"Morgans' garage." Boone raised an eyebrow. "New attire for court?"

She flicked a glance at her shorts and T-shirt. "Actually, it's attire for going to Cincinnati. I thought I'd take Gert and Sims over to get his cast off. Maybe I can get them to buy me lunch." She fluttered her lashes at Sims. "Whaddaya think?"

"I think you should have called." Gert's voice was sharp. "Lucy's taking us. Boone's riding shotgun."

"Oh." Kelly's face fell, hurt crossing her features. "I guess I should have," she admitted. She sipped her coffee and drummed her knuckles against the top of the counter, then took her phone out of the pocket of her shorts and started jabbing at the screen.

Lucy wasn't sure what Kelly was doing-her own cell phone was both old and featureless-but the other woman's fingers were flying over the miniature keyboard, her nails with their violet polish and embedded rhinestones sparkling.

"Why don't you and Boone go?" Lucy's suggestion stopped the fingers midflight. "I can do lunch today, save my day-off ticket for something more fun than spending it with a grumpy old man." She grinned at Sims and he glowered back. "Don't frown at me. I was talking about Boone."

Kelly brightened. "Oh, okay." She put her phone back into her pocket. "Thank you," she added briefly.

Lucy didn't know why she was surprised at Kelly's instant acceptance of the offer, but she was. Not only surprised, but disgruntled. That was what came of being a pleaser. You ended up in situations where you had no one to blame but yourself.

"Lucy, if you have time," Sims requested, "would you go over and make sure the air's turned on in my house? Don't worry about food or anything like that. I just don't want to be walking into a blast furnace when I go home."

"Sure." She grinned. "Wouldn't want you to break into a sweat while you're dancing around the house."

One thing about having her plans changed was that it left her plenty of time. She'd done much of the day's work beforehand in preparation for being away from the tearoom. She would also-though he'd told her not to worry about it-fill his refrigerator. That wouldn't be hard because all it usually had in it was a half-gallon of milk and a twelve-pack of beer.

The day's lunch crowd was spa.r.s.e, making the three hours she served drag. One man said his sandwich was "lousy" and p.r.o.nounced to the room at large that she should be drummed out of business. A toddler gave a tablecloth a jerk that landed half the table's dishes in a shattered mess on the floor. A woman sat alone in the front parlor and talked on her cell phone throughout her lunch, broadcasting the details of her personal life. When handing change for a hundred-dollar bill to the person who hated his sandwich, Lucy inadvertently gave him twenty dollars too much, and he kept it.

"No, you didn't give me too much. You're trying to cheat me," he said when she attempted to correct her error. It was cheaper to let him have the twenty dollars-he obviously needed it more than she did if he was willing to lie for it. Taking the money out of her pickle jar to cover the shortage in the day's receipts, she decided some dreams came more expensive than others.

It had not been the best of days. She was almost afraid to go to Sims's bungalow at the end of the River Walk, for fear it would burst into flames at her approach.

However, everything appeared to be in order. She stocked the refrigerator with the staples and the leftovers she'd brought and turned on the central air conditioning. She changed the sheets on the king-size bed in Sims's room and hung fresh towels in the bathroom.

It was a nice house, she thought, locking its front door behind her and going to the van with her armload of laundry. She wondered, not for the first time, why Sims and Gert maintained separate residences. Perhaps Gert stayed in the Twilight Park Avenue house because it was Lucy's home, too, not to mention the place of business that supplied the younger woman's entire income. Gert being Gert, she wouldn't want to leave her boarder either homeless or jobless.

It was a singularly depressing thought.

Boone helped a scarcely limping Sims into his house. "Jack'll close the station," he promised. "Tomorrow's soon enough for you to get back on the clock."

"I own the clock," Sims grumbled. "I should be there."

"Tomorrow's soon enough," Boone repeated, trying to sound calm and unhurried. He loved his family and Sims, but the trip to Cincinnati and back had exhausted his social capacity. He needed some time by himself. Or with Lucy. Either way would work.

"The kid's working a lot of hours and he's on the football team, too," Sims argued. "I wanted to let him have tonight off."

"Then I'll go close. Kelly can drop me off at home and I'll ride my bike over." Not the evening he'd planned-he was behind in his work-but he could catch up. He was just doing too much of that lately. It was easier in Chicago, where he was able to sort his time into neat little segments. Life in Taft didn't lend itself easily to compartmentalization.

"All right. Go on then. I'll be fine."

Jack was cleaning the gas station restrooms when Boone got there. "Geez, kid, you wanting to clean your way to a raise?" Boone waved a hand when the bell from the pumps rang. "I'll get it."

He filled the SUV in the lot, ran the customer's credit card, and cleaned his windshield. He was going to skip that, but there was no doubt someone would have called Sims by morning and ratted him out.